Forward Learning with Differential Privacy

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Feng, Mingqian, Zhang, Zeliang, Jiang, Jinyang, Peng, Yijie, Xu, Chenliang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Feng, Mingqian
Zhang, Zeliang
Jiang, Jinyang
Peng, Yijie
Xu, Chenliang
author_facet Feng, Mingqian
Zhang, Zeliang
Jiang, Jinyang
Peng, Yijie
Xu, Chenliang
contents Differential privacy (DP) in deep learning is a critical concern as it ensures the confidentiality of training data while maintaining model utility. Existing DP training algorithms provide privacy guarantees by clipping and then injecting external noise into sample gradients computed by the backpropagation algorithm. Different from backpropagation, forward-learning algorithms based on perturbation inherently add noise during the forward pass and utilize randomness to estimate the gradients. Although these algorithms are non-privatized, the introduction of noise during the forward pass indirectly provides internal randomness protection to the model parameters and their gradients, suggesting the potential for naturally providing differential privacy. In this paper, we propose a \blue{privatized} forward-learning algorithm, Differential Private Unified Likelihood Ratio (DP-ULR), and demonstrate its differential privacy guarantees. DP-ULR features a novel batch sampling operation with rejection, of which we provide theoretical analysis in conjunction with classic differential privacy mechanisms. DP-ULR is also underpinned by a theoretically guided privacy controller that dynamically adjusts noise levels to manage privacy costs in each training step. Our experiments indicate that DP-ULR achieves competitive performance compared to traditional differential privacy training algorithms based on backpropagation, maintaining nearly the same privacy loss limits.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_00411
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Forward Learning with Differential Privacy
Feng, Mingqian
Zhang, Zeliang
Jiang, Jinyang
Peng, Yijie
Xu, Chenliang
Machine Learning
Differential privacy (DP) in deep learning is a critical concern as it ensures the confidentiality of training data while maintaining model utility. Existing DP training algorithms provide privacy guarantees by clipping and then injecting external noise into sample gradients computed by the backpropagation algorithm. Different from backpropagation, forward-learning algorithms based on perturbation inherently add noise during the forward pass and utilize randomness to estimate the gradients. Although these algorithms are non-privatized, the introduction of noise during the forward pass indirectly provides internal randomness protection to the model parameters and their gradients, suggesting the potential for naturally providing differential privacy. In this paper, we propose a \blue{privatized} forward-learning algorithm, Differential Private Unified Likelihood Ratio (DP-ULR), and demonstrate its differential privacy guarantees. DP-ULR features a novel batch sampling operation with rejection, of which we provide theoretical analysis in conjunction with classic differential privacy mechanisms. DP-ULR is also underpinned by a theoretically guided privacy controller that dynamically adjusts noise levels to manage privacy costs in each training step. Our experiments indicate that DP-ULR achieves competitive performance compared to traditional differential privacy training algorithms based on backpropagation, maintaining nearly the same privacy loss limits.
title Forward Learning with Differential Privacy
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.00411